The invention relates to the DNAs of papillomaviruses HPV68 and HPV70 and variants of these papillomaviruses, to immunogenic proteins of these viruses, to expression vectors encoding these proteins, and to products genetically or immunologically related to these papillomaviruses.
More than 30 types of human papillomaviruses (HPVs) infecting the genital tract have been identified so far (7, 17). The expression "papillomavirus" covers a large number of viruses having in common the role of being held responsible for several forms of viral infections ranging from relatively benign warts of the skin and mucous membranes to hyperplasias capable of degenerating into intra-epithelial neoplasias and cutaneous cancers. Among papillomavirus infections, mention should also be made more particularly of cutaneous warts (in particular common warts and plantar warts epidermodysplasia verruciformis, plane or intermediary skin warts), intra-epithelial neoplasias and cutaneous cancers, the cancers of the epidermodysplasia verruciformis, genital neoplasias, and cancers of the uterine cervix condylomas and papillomas.
The papillomaviruses are found associated with squamous intraepithelial lesions of the uterine cervix, known as cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), which may regress, remain stable, or progress into invasive squamous cell carcinomas (23, 31). It is likely that the variability of the clinical evolution of CIN reflects the diversity of the associated HPV types (3, 23).
Therefore, the identification of all genital HPV types is an important issue to understand fully the role of HPVs in the natural history of invasive carcinoma of the uterine cervix, which is the second most frequent cause of cancer-related mortality in women worldwide (31). Obviously, such knowledge would be of significant help to clinicians for the management of patients.